"I hope next year there will be [art] everywhere, [and on] every corner, some people doing something. It becomes very ... it becomes like a festival ... like a festival of 9/11."

Those were the words of "street artist" Mr. Brainwash, who hit his peak in the culture about the same time as Sparks, and whose persona miiiiight be in part, at least, the creation of Banksy and/or Shepard Fairey, but who definitely says he is responsible for the massive, very earnest mural on the wall of Century 21 department store, located on Church between Dey Street and Cortlandt Street in Lower Manhattan near the World Trade Center site.

"I wanted to get as close as I could to the site," Brainwash told us today on the sidewalk in front of the mural, adding that he hopes his mural inspires other artists.

Remember last fall when Banksy was running around the city, throwing million dollar-paintings up, willy nilly? Of course you do. So you probably also remember that about halfway through his month-long "Better Out Than In" residency--when Banksy mania was at a fever pitch--an old man set up a stall in Central Park and sold spray art canvases for $60 a pop.

Wait, it's a Banksy? No? Yeah, no. A tipster sent us photos of a booth in SoHo showing stencils made in the characteristic Banksy style. There's little else to suggest it's the British rapscallion, but journalistic due diligence demands we publish the photos and speculate wildly about them. What say you, inquiring public?

UPDATED October 31, 10:30 a.m.: The auction for Banksy's October 29 "Better Out Than In" Nazi installment closes tonight at 8 p.m. The bidding, which opened at $74,000, is up to $310,400. The auction is taking place at the charity website biddingforgood.com and proceeds will benefit the Brooklyn-based HIV/AIDS nonprofit Housing Works.

Original post below:

We're really not sure what to make of Banksy's latest installment in "Better Out Than In." His website describes it as "The banality of the banality of evil, Oil on oil on canvas, 2013" and "a thrift store painting vandalized then re-donated to the thrift store." What we see is a beautiful pastoral landscape, except there's an SS officer on a bench in the foreground.

What exactly is he getting at with "the banality of the banality of evil"? Doing loop-de-loops around Hannah Arendt's theoretical reckoning of the Nazis' rise to power isn't really how we want to spend our afternoon, but we're guessing it has something to do with Banksy not really caring much about what he's actually saying.

It was well worth spending the day compulsively refreshing Banksy's Instagram. The artist's penultimate showing in "Better Out Than In" is a gorgeous leopard stencil at Yankee Stadium. We don't know the precise location of the piece, titled Bronx Zoo, but it's clear that the stencil is on the wall of the stadium.

A Wall Street trader has followed through on his promise to give to the Sandy rebuilding effort even if Banksy didn't lend his star power. Nelson Saiers, the hedge fund manager behind HeyBanksy.com, a scheme to get Banksy to bring publicity to ongoing Sandy recovery efforts, has decided to donate his money whether or not the graffiti artist delivers by the end of his residency this week.

It's the dog days of "Better Out Than In," and Banksy has decided to step away from his comfort zone in the Lower East Side and inner Brooklyn for his latest work. Today's piece is out on Coney Island: a robot standing next to a barcode.

Good morning, New York. Banksy would like to once again give you a piece of his mind. Today's entry in the ongoing "Better Out Than In" residency is a simple stencil reading, "This site contains blocked messages," a response to the censorship the artist feels he has suffered at the hands of one venerable New York publication. And which publication might that be?